30 Short Stories About Cloud
by Katsura
Summary: 30 short ficlets about Cloud, written for the cloudsmiles omnichallenge 2. General spoilers abound and some light, implied shounenai. Complete!
1. Child

I wrote these for the LJ community cloudsmiles, where the "Omnichallenge 2" contest ran from July 19 to August 19 to celebrate Cloud's birthday. They're pretty unedited, as I haven't read any of them since I wrote them (so, error-corrections welcomed!). Some implied shounen-ai and general spoilers abound.

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**01. Child**

Six-year-old Cloud came home with blood streaming down his chin. He had a determined look on his face as he strode purposely into the house and into the bathroom, getting a clean cloth from the cupboard.

But he couldn't quite reach the taps that turned on the water yet, and he wondered how to turn them on without getting Mama's help. He didn't want her to see the blood on his face; she would scold him again.

Mama knew he was there anyway; she materialised behind him as if out of nowhere, and turned the taps on with one hand while plucking the cloth from his grubby hand with the other. He looked up at her, guilty. She merely smiled at him this time.

"Have a seat, Cloud." He did as he was told, and sat on the edge of the tub, wiping at his bleeding nose with the back of one hand.

"Does it hurt?" she questioned a moment later, gently wiping the blood from his face, taking care not to touch his nose directly. The blood had mostly stopped, which she took as a good sign. His nose didn't look swollen either, so it likely wasn't broken. Thank goodness for small blessings.

"Nuh-uh," he said, voice muffled by the cloth. His blue eyes shone behind dirty blond hair and equally dirty skin.

She took in the general grime of his appearance. "I think we need a bath," she observed, smiling when he groaned at the thought. "Who were you fighting this time?"

He scowled as fiercely as any six-year-old could. "Jinta. He took my toy and wouldn't give it back."

She merely nodded, but inside she was hoping that one day her precious little boy would be able to make friends and settle their differences without resorting to fisticuffs.


	2. Smile

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**02. Smile**

_You don't smile much, do you?_

Zack had been the first to make that observation. I supposed it was true; I didn't have a lot to smile about. Or I thought I didn't. Even after Sephiroth was dead, really dead this time, the relief I felt only lasted a short time. I couldn't find reasons to smile, simply because I never really had. I can't say how that happened really... It seemed a shame to have spent 23 years alive, and having so few reasons to laugh or smile.

But standing in that spring, surrounded by laughing children who were so happy, splashing water at each other and me, or just throwing it up in the air. I couldn't help but smile at their antics. I ought to take a lesson from them, I thought, looking around. I recognized a lot of them from the Forgotten Capital, pawns under Kadaj's promise of being cured. Children who'd been afflicted by Geostigma, and hadn't forgotten the joy in their young lives.. I could learn from that.

Then I saw her.

_No... It couldn't be..._

But it was. Exactly as I remembered her, pink dress, steel-toed boots, ponytail and all. She was crouching, talking to a pair of children on the floor, children who hung onto her every word, even as she rose and started to walk away. Every muscle and bone in my body froze, and even my breath seemed to stop in my throat. I wanted to say something, do something.. but I couldn't. Even less so, when I saw what she was walking towards... and who waited there.

If I believed in a supreme being, I would have been on my knees, begging for forgiveness. The two people I worried most about having to see in whatever afterlife there may be. The two people I felt personally responsible for their untimely deaths. How could I tell them how sorry I was? I had sat back and watched them die. And how could I apologize for butchering Zack's personality so badly?

How could I meet them again, with a face that wasn't clouded by guilt?

Nearly at the portal where nothing but white beyond, she stopped, and turned. She was so far away, but I could still hear her voice as clear as if she was standing next to me. Then she smiled in that way of hers, turned back, and walked into the white with confidence.

My eyes darted to the side.

He tipped his head, gave a casual wave, and also disappeared.

I felt a smile stretching my lips... what an odd sensation. Finally, I felt... almost at peace. We would talk later. For now, I had friends. And reasons to smile.


	3. Nibelheim

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**03. Nibelheim**

"You're really improving, Cloud," Zack said, only _slightly_ out of breath. "I'm really proud of you. Just gotta build up a little more stamina, and you'll make the exams next time for sure."

Cloud wasn't so sure of that, but he couldn't even reply to the compliment. The older boy had "killed" him again, and he lay flat on his back right now, head spinning and breathless. The fact that Zack was panting ever-so-slightly was about the only thing that made him feel good about him saying anything about the exams. He didn't want to think about those just yet. He had to survive the weekend first, after all.

Zack flopped down onto the grass next to him, pulling the blond's helmet off for him and otherwise leaving him lie. After a moment, he rose again and dragged their pack closer, fishing a canteen of water out of it and taking a long drink from it before offering it to Cloud. He hadn't realized how thirsty he was until the first drops touched his tongue, and then he drained the rest of the container of liquid. It was kinda stale and warm from sitting all day, but he didn't care. Once empty, he let his arm flop back to his side and closed his eyes against the darkening sky. It felt good not to move.

He sensed Zack stretching out on the ground next to him. The silence stretched between them a moment longer before Zack, ever the talker, broke it. He seemed to be afraid of too much quiet, or something. "So this is your hometown?" he asked, casually.

Cloud frowned the tiniest bit. He knew he'd lied about his hometown to Zack when they'd first met -- was that only a year ago? -- and he was pretty sure he'd been caught in the lie already, but then he remembered Sephiroth had asked him about it on their way here, and he'd been too road-sick to give much of an answer. Damn. "Yeah," he replied.

"It's nice." From the distance, a quiet _pop_ sounded. "Pretty," the dark-haired boy clarified, "and the people seem nice too."

"I guess..." Cloud didn't know how to tell him that with very few exceptions, everyone here had painted him with a black brush and tried to ignore his existance, except when it was convient. It was hard to return to a place where he had been so out-caste. At least while he was on duty, he had to keep his uniform on, and that included the stuffy helmet, and made him simply an anonymous soldier. He was glad that no one had recognized him, especially Tifa. He was nervous every time he had to be anywhere near her, but he was glad that she was well. "You should see it in summer time, when all the flowers are in bloom. The hills are just an endless sea of flowers."

Zack chuckled. "Maybe we can come back in the summer then." He shifted, the leather parts of his uniform creaking. "Hey, Cloud..." His voice trailed off.

"Hmm?" Cloud cracked an eye open to look at him, but the older boy was looking back in the direction of Nibelheim, a frown creasing his brow. Confused, Cloud struggled to sit up, following his gaze, and his eyes widened to see many of the buildings brightly lit by the fires on their rooftops. He felt his jaw dropping a bit, hardly able to believe his eyes. So much of the town was already on fire...

"Something's not right," Zack declared, getting to his feet. Cloud scrambled to his as well, barely remembering to shove his helmet back on before they set off at paced run back towards the town, the pack left forgotten on the ground.

By the time they got to the gates, the fire was in full swing, the sound a deafening roar as it devoured every house and building in its wake. There was almost no smoke, but the heat of the flames stung Cloud's eyes and threatened to choke the breath right from his lungs. Zack stopped when he reached the square, looking around for something, and then set off again down one of the side streets, Cloud trailing after him.

_What happened here?_ he thought, a sense of despair gripping his chest. He may not have wanted to come back here, but this was still his home. And it was being taken away just like that. He wondered if they should be looking for survivors, but as one building behind them crashed down to it's foundations, throwing sparks and flame into the air, he thought they would be lucky to escape the inferno with their lives.

Zack ran after two people trying to evacuate, one carrying the other on his back, yelling to get their attention. Cloud's heart skipped a beat to see seven or eight bodies lying in the street nearby, most of them already smouldering, and felt emotion collecting deep in his belly. The fires had to have been set by use of materia, it was the only way to account for such wide-spread damaged in such a short amount of time, and obviously the people in the street had been laid out there as they tried to escape.

The man carrying the other paused and turned. "You better be sane!" he yelled back at them, and seemed to relax only a little when he saw that it was Zack who approached.

"What happened here?" Zack questioned without preamble. Cloud saw that the mobile man was Tifa's teacher, whose name escaped him at the moment, and he didn't recognize the man on his back.

"It was Sephiroth," the man -- _Zangan_ -- said, his voice tight with anger. "He's supposed to be a hero, but he's a homcidial maniac! Killed all those people in cold blood, spouted some shit about a 'mother' and gone off into the mountains." He looked like he wanted to say more, but Zack turned away and contemplated the blazing town with narrowed eyes.

Zack grimaced and turned his gaze to Cloud, meeting his eyes through the helmet's shield with ease. "I knew something was wrong when he didn't come out of there," he said quietly, just loud enough for Cloud alone to hear. He meant the mansion; their leader had been cooped up in there for days without seeing anyone in that whole time. He turned back to Zangan. "I'm going after him," he declared. "Get yourself and as many as you can find on the way out of here, and don't come back!" He turned towards the stairs that lead the way to the path into the moutains. He stopped when Cloud started to follow, reaching out to grab his arm. "Stay and help him," he said.

"But --" Cloud started to protest. He'd felt so angry to find that Sephiroth was the cause of this, it was almost more cloying that the acrid smell of burnt wood all around them. He wanted to find the older man, and punch him right in his perfect little face.

"Don't argue." Zack's voice was hard and unyielding. "That's an order, Private. Find anyone you can and get them out. Don't stay too long, and don't risk yourself unnecessarily. Meet me at the Reactor if you have time, but only if you can get there _safely_." His eyes searched Cloud's, and he liked to think there was a pleading quality to his voice. "I may need your help."

Cloud was torn, but while Zack was his friend, he was still a superior, and he'd been given a direct order. He nodded. "Yes, sir," he said, snapping a quick salute before turning and making to follow Zangan. He sincerely hoped that he would be able to make it to the reactor, if only to give Sephiroth a piece of his mind.

He may have hated his hometown and the people in it, but _nobody_ burned it down so unceremoniously and got away with it.


	4. Song

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**04. Song**

He slowed his footsteps as he neared the showers, hearing loud voices and laughter inside. He would really rather not see anyone here right now, and it was supposed to be a time of the day when the showers weren't really busy. He considered not showering just yet for a brief moment, but then he thought of the sweat and blood and dirt in his hair, let alone anywhere else on his body, and he just couldn't bear the thought of returning later. He wanted to get clean, and right-freaking-now.

Cloud pushed open the door to the showers cautiously, peeking in first to see the cause of the commotion. One voice was raised above the others in song, to which everyone quieted a bit. The singer wasn't too bad - at first. Then he hit a note he couldn't reach, voice breaking comically to the amusement of everyone else in the room.

"Don't quit your day-job, Zack," one boy teased from nearby.

"You'll never make the top ten charts," another added, setting the rest into gales of laughter again.

"What the hell are you butchering, anyway?" a third asked, to more laughter.

"You know, I don't know the name of the song or the singer." Zack grinned as he turned in his stall to face the dozen or so other boys in the room, who, Cloud noted as he crept further into the room, were ringed around the one stall, and only two others were in use further down the line, and their occupants were avidly paying attention to the SOLDIER and his audience. "I heard it on the radio this morning and I can't get it out of my head. It's pretty catchy, huh." He burst out into song again, still smiling, as he tipped his head back into the spray to wash the suds out of his hair.

It WAS pretty catchy, Cloud thought, turning on his own shower and revelling in the feel of the hot water running over his body. He even found himself humming it in his head later, sans words and any real discernible melody because he couldn't quite remember how it went, and came to the realization that he had no idea why Zack, a first-class SOLDIER, was using showers generally reserved for the new recruits and unassigned personnel.


	5. Blue

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**05. Blue**

The ocean is a sight I think everyone should see at least once in their lives. Standing on the shore, looking out at the vast expanse of water that stretches from horizon to horizon, so vast that you can't comprehend there ever being an end to it, or that there is another huge land on the other side of it, as vast as an ocean in its own way.

The first time I saw it, I was amazed. I had heard of it, but trapped beneath a mountain, far from anything resembling an ocean, it was hard to comprehend. I boarded the ship with the other hopeful army recruits, unaware that the motion of a ship was completely unlike that of a vehicle, and I ended up being too sick to appreciate anything about that voyage.

As a grunt, I spent some time in Junon, where I got to look at the ocean every day. I spent a lot of my free time sitting somewhere I could see it, and just watch. The white crests of waves in the distance, and the whole thing a blue so stunning it seemed like where it met the sky was just a seam, like the kind on my clothing, it was easy to get lost in it.

The second time I crossed the ocean, Zack compared the beautiful depths to my eyes, though not in so many words. I must confess, I didn't know what to say, but I thought that if anything, the colour was closer to HIS eyes.

The third time, I was too out of it to notice anything. Everything was eradicated by a constant haze of green.

We're about to cross it again, and I can't decide if I feel anything at all.


	6. Book

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**06. Book**

Marlene's book lays on the kitchen table, neatly arranged next to her bookbag. I know she's reading it for school, because she's been making me read it with her to help her with words she doesn't understand. It's cover is bright, and displays artwork of a young girl and a one-horned creature that looks suspiciously like a chocobo, if a chocobo were to have four legs, no beak, and a horn growing out of the center of it's forehead.

It's pretty late; the bar has been closed for a few hours, and the children are in bed, and it's really time that I should be getting into bed myself, but the book just lays there, it's pages neatly seperated in the middle by a small card, taunting me. She says she won't need to read another chapter for a few more days, but the last one finished at an awkward moment, and curiousity about what happens next is nearly eating me alive. I have already promised not to read ahead of her, and it takes more effort than it should not to snatch it up and find out how it ends.


	7. Family

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**07. Family**

I hadn't thought of our motley household as a family. Tifa was my closest (living) friend, I thought of Denzel as a little brother, and Marlene was only staying as long as Barret was out of town working. I had once thought a family to be people you were related to, but as far as I knew, both of my parents were dead, and I had no other relatives. But then, none of us did. Marlene wasn't even related to Barret. A bunch of orphans, clinging to each other with the hope of a somewhat normal life.

We weren't above our share of fights, and there were plenty of petty arguments and head-butting over stupid things. Any time anyone fought, whether I was involved or not, it made me uncomfortable and I would long to be elsewhere. Especially when I _was_ involved, I think. There were tears and laughter, stray animals brought home to reside for a time as pets, friendships coming and going and broken hearts to soothe. I just wanted the people I lived with to be happy. I wanted us to have a secure home, one that everyone felt comfortable in, where friends were welcome at any hour of the day, and no one was made to feel left out or excluded.

All around, we had a pretty good life. It wasn't always easy, but we were always together. We stayed together, despite the obstacles in our way, and while I wouldn't want to speak for anyone else in the household, I was content. We were a family.


	8. Card

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**08. Card**

Cloud rubbed the back of his neck tiredly, wondering if the day was ever going to just end. They'd all been dragged out into the rain at some ungodly hour of the morning, made to run exercises for a full two hours before breakfast, only to do more exercises out in the rain for another four hours, eat a quick lunch and then practice weapons' work until dinner.

Which had been a bonafide disaster, but he really didn't want to think about it now. Some of the other recruits had gotten wind of the fact that this miserable, rainy day was his birthday, and while a small part of him had been pleased that they'd gone out of their way to try to do something for him, he would really have rathered it hadn't involved gelatin and whipped cream. He was glad to have gotten out of the showers with only a couple snapped towel marks on his legs, and they faded in with the rest of his bruises easily enough.

He was kind of disappointed that he hadn't heard from his mother at all, yet. She had promised to send him something for his birthday, but at the day's mail-call, there had been nothing. He wanted to be a tough boy, one who didn't rely on anyone for anything, but he'd only just turned 15, and a part of him really wanted to hear his mother's happy voice wishing him a happy birthday while setting out a home-made cake with mountain-berry filling and fresh whipped cream on top, nothing like that glop in the cafeteria. He had always been able to rely on her being glad that he was alive.

The night was a free-activity night, and most of the recruits had opted to go play games at the rec hall, or go out on the town, or whatever else they had decided on doing. Some of the people he felt closest to had invited him out to join them, but he'd turned them down, and they hadn't pushed. Hopefully, there wouldn't be too many people around, and he could go to sleep in peace.

He'd been in the training programs for just over a year and while he was vastly improved than when he'd arrived, he was still struggling with the weapons training. Zack was helpful beyond belief, offering extra one-on-one training whenever he had time (which was more frequently than Cloud would have thought, but still not often enough to really make the most of it), but they were more guilty of forgoing the full time Zack had available solely in training, and more often than not wound up drinking that godawful coffee Zack swore was the best in the whole complex, sitting on some stairs and just chatting randomly about anything. (Zack did most of the talking, but he managed to get more sentences out of him in one sitting than anyone back home had bothered to try for in a year.) They had a lot in common, Cloud found while listening to the older boy talk, and were close enough in age that despite their difference in rank, it didn't matter much. He enjoyed the time he spent with Zack, and hoped - cautiously - that they could grow to be real friends.

He reached his bunk, the lower half of a bunk bed, and stopped short, staring at the orange envelope lying innocently on his pillow. He looked around to see if any of the boys in the room were watching him for a reaction, but they were not only on the other side of the room, but deeply engrossed in a game of cards and hadn't even looked up at him when he walked in. The plain writing on the front addressed him plainly: _Strife._

For a moment, he pondered just tossing it. The other boys weren't precisely mean, but they had played more than a few pranks on him. Then he thought that the way the T was crossed seemed familiar and picked it up gingerly. Turning it over, he smiled. _Fr. Zack, you dolt, _was scrawled on the back, along with a cartoon-ish face sticking its tongue out at him. He smiled sheepishly at his own foolishness and pulled the envelope open, removing the card from within.

_I didn't know what to get you for your birthday,_ the outside read, and on the inside: _so give yourself a noogie and pretend it's from me! _He felt a grin splitting his face, a most unusual feeling but one he was getting used to around Zack. Underneath the printed text was a hand-written message_. Sorry I couldn't be there to wish you a happy b-day in person. Next time I'm back, I'll take you out for the best ice cream in the whole world, I promise! _Zack and another ridiculous cartoon face.

He sat on his bunk and re-read the card about 17 times before tucking it under his pillow and laying back. Such a simple gesture, and something he had only received twice before in his life, it really meant a lot... Especially coming from Zack. He rolled onto his side, a smile on his face, and the trials of the day entirely erased by a little piece of folded paper.


	9. Friend

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**09. Friend**

_We're friends, right, Cloud?_

Friendship was the only thing we had to hold onto, trapped in cells in this basement where no sunshine reached, and the only people we saw were either Hojo, or his underlings. They either carried trays of what I supposed could only be called "food" in the loosest interpretation of the word, or those horrible needles that brought on hours and hours of time when my entire vision was blurred by a green haze.

Even when we escaped, Zack kept me close to him. I didn't expect him to, nor would I have blamed him if he had chosen to leave me behind. I was all but incapable of keeping myself upright, and couldn't seem to make any part of my body behave itself, at all. He carried me on piggy-back most of the way, walking as long as there was light to be had, and when the sun went down, he would conceal us as best as he could in whatever cover was available. The nights were cold, but at least we were out of that gods-forsaken basement and away from those crazy, so-called "scientists". All we had were the clothes on our back, so Zack apologized and looked guilty when we settled in for the night, and he'd wrap as much of his body around mine as he could. "You're too skinny," he would murmur in my ear. "I don't want you to freeze to death." Rarely could I actually sleep, but that was because of the nightmares, and when I woke thrashing wildly from them, he was always there to calm me down. I didn't scream anymore, he would tell me, somewhat worriedly. Not since that bastard had put something into my veins that wasn't green.

It was easy to see why Zack had risen to First Class SOLDIER at such a young age, I noted on our flight across the continent. Despite being cooped up for as long as we had been, he was still in great shape, and could forage enough off the land to keep us from being hungry or thirsty. We avoided places with civilization. Any monsters we encountered, Zack took care of. Afterwards, he would just pick me back up from where he'd dropped me, and continue on our way.

Late in the second day, as Zack curled his body around mine again, he whispered, "We're being followed. Let's try not to have any nightmares tonight, OK?" He sounded amused at least; he must have known that I couldn't help it. I would have given a limb or two to make them stop.

On the third day, Zack pushed us further than before. The sun was long set when we were attacked by a group of military personnel - no SOLDIERS, but plenty of men hell-bent on making sure we didn't make it past this point. Zack placed me against some metal poles, slammed his sword into the ground to keep me there, and ran off. There was gunfire and other sounds that all ran into each other and made no sense, and I wanted to scream and tear my ears off... but I couldn't. Then it got quiet.

He returned with a motorcycle. Deep inside, I dreaded getting on it with him. I had driven with him before, he was a lunatic on the road. Plus, I couldn't hold on. But he managed anyway, holding me with one hand and steering with the other.

The bike ran out of gas just in sight of the coast. He figured we should stop for the night and try to cross the ocean in the morning, but I think he really wanted to get over there tonight. He didn't say anything about what had happened back there, where he'd acquired the bike, but I don't imagine it was too pleasant. Neither of us slept well that night.

Zack stole a boat the next morning and we crossed the ocean. It was an all day adventure, thankfully uneventful. Zack breathed easier when we set foot on the shore. We rested for the night, and in the morning, set out again.

Shinra didn't seem intent on following us here, and Zack was more optimistic. He managed to secure us a ride in the back of a pick-up truck, apologizing for the transportation 'cause he knew I got motion-sick. It didn't matter; I was already sick. What was a bouncing truck ride across the desert going to do?

Zack couldn't sit still. He moved around a lot, causing the old man driving the truck to yell at him more than once, and he had a conversation with himself about what kind of jobs we would have when we got to Midgar. I could hear everything he said, but no matter how much I wanted to talk to him, help him, anything, I couldn't.

"Just kidding," he was saying, flopping back down next to me, giving me a wink. "I wouldn't abandon you. We're friends, right?"

_Right. You'd said that years ago, and we'd both clung to it in the last 5 years. Five years? Was that really how long it had been? You didn't have to save me, Zack... you could have left on your own, maybe you would have had a chance. But then, that wasn't in your nature, was it?_


	10. Routine

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**10. Routine**

It's not a typical morning.

Everyone is running late.

I can't remember mornings being quite like this even in the army. I didn't have any deliveries this morning, so I decided to sleep in a little. Maybe an hour. Tifa was so used to waking up with my alarm clock that she thought hers was mine, and slept in. As such, Marlene and Denzel slept in as well without anyone to make sure they got up, and now the house is a zoo. There are voices yelling for various things - where is this or that item needed for school, you better eat all your breakfast because you only get one lunch and what will you eat later if you eat your lunch as a snack, has anyone seen my hairbrush - and in a way, it's funny, how upsetting the routine just a little throws it all into chaos.


	11. Moment

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**11. Moment**

I was a little disappointed. I had hoped to be spending the evening with Zack, working with him on training myself for the upcoming exams, but he'd made pleading eyes at me, saying he already had plans for the evening, plans he'd made months ago with a friend he didn't get to see often. I could hardly refuse, but the result was that I didn't feel like training by myself, especially since it was a "rest" night, and everyone else was out having fun. Or staying in and having fun. Mostly having fun, and I had nothing else to do, and no one else to visit. I supposed I could have taken one of the other boys up on their offers, but at the time, I had thought that I would have plans...

The barracks phone rang, and one of the cadets nearest to it answered. I hardly paid attention to it; it was rarely used, and it was never for me. My mother preferred to send me letters, except on my birthday, which was still months away.

"Strife!!" The cadet had covered the mouthpiece with his hand and hollered across the length of the room. My head snapped up, surprised. "Phone call!"

I was confused. For me? Who could it be? Maybe it was Zack? But why? Another officer? Was I in trouble? No, they wouldn't call me out like this just for that, and besides, I hadn't done anything recently to warrant the attention. I took the receiver from the cadet, curiousity eating away at my brain.

"Strife speaking."

The voice on the other end was from the _least_ likely person. My heart stopped in my chest and my eyes nearly fell out of my head, I am not kidding.

"Strife. Cloud. May I call you Cloud? Sephiroth. Zack is trying to kill us both with his cooking" - in the background, I could hear an indignant shout - "and I was wondering if you would like to join us for a decent meal prepared by someone else that is not lethal to the diners."

"I'm not trying to kill anyone and I cook just fine! Look, it's even defrosted!"I could hear Zack saying, but he was also laughing.

I had to work hard to find my voice. Dinner? With _both_ of them? Was this a dream?

"I'd love to!"

I probably sounded too eager, but I didn't care. This had to be the happiest moment in my whole life!!


	12. Promise

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**12: Promise**

The world is little more than an endless cycle of green, green, green, and more green. I have long since lost count of the times the green starts and goes away, because as sure as the sun rises (I think), the green comes, and goes, and comes, and goes, and comes... Even when I close my eyes, the green is there.

Next to me, Zack is pacing up and down the length of his cell, muttering to himself. Sometimes I wonder if he is ever trying to talk to me, but when his muttering hits, he never looks in my direction so I can only assume that he just wants to hear a friendly voice. The green makes me so sick that I can only find the coherency to talk after it has gone, and usually it happens right before it comes back. Zack talks of inane things that seem to have no relevance. He asks me if I remember what the sky looks like, and if I can remember this or that incident from our days as trainees -- or rather, my time as a trainee, and his time as someone I looked up. If there was a sense of day and night here, it was probably every day he would tell me how sorry he was that he had recommended me for this mission.

Not because he hadn't thought I could do it, he used to hasten to reassure me, but because if I hadn't been here, then I wouldn't be _here_, trapped and made into a science experiment. _Science_, he would scoff, and kick at a wall. But on the other hand, where would the rest of us be, he would say, if I hadn't been here and, fueled by rage, thrown Sephiroth down into the chasm of earth beneath the reactor?

I found it harder and harder to believe that it was me who'd done that, and tried to tell myself it had been someone else.

"You got guts, Spike," he said frequently. Often enough that I knew he said it while I was trapped in the nausea and nightmares of the green. "Sometimes I wonder about your brains, but you got guts. I swear, I'll get us out of here if it's the last thing I do."


	13. Practice

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**13. Practice**

Cloud woke with a start, the small timepiece next to his ear buzzing intermittently. He flipped over to slap his hand down on the button to silence it, wondering why it was going off. The barracks were usually woken by a foghorn.

His neighbours hadn't heard his alarm, apparently; there was just the usual night-noises - someone nearby shifting in their bed, someone not-so-nearby snoring lightly.

He lay there for a moment, pondering how long it would take to get back to sleep, when he remembered something, and cracked an eye open to see the displayed time. He managed to supress a groan at the ridiculously early hour but the threw the covers back and slithered out of the warm sheets. He tried to ignore the cold cement floor underneath his feet as he found and changed into the pile of clothes he'd made ready the previous night. He tidied his bunk quickly, grabbed his trainers, and crept out of the barracks on socked feet. Once outside, he shoved his feet into the trainers and sprinted down the walkway into the training building.

The lights in several training rooms were on, but unoccupied. He tried a few doors out of curiousity; all locked. The one he was looking for was also lit, but when he turned the handle, it gave way and the door swung open on silent hinges. Hard breathing hit his ears as he stepped in, letting the door close behind him, and peered among the rows of weights until he found Zack on a mat in a large open space, doing push-ups with one arm behind his back. He had to glance at his own arms and found them to be scrawny; he wondered if he would ever manage one-armed push-ups.

"Fifty!" Zack announced, setting his hand down and jumping lightly to his feet. He grinned at Cloud, looking entirely too cheerful for 4:15 AM. "Mornin', Spike!" he said, pushing his hair back from his face. He didn't even look like he had broken a sweat yet. "Ready to start practicing?"


	14. SOLDIER

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**14. SOLDIER**

Cloud used to think that SOLDIERs weren't scared of anything. He believed this most wholeheartedly, and it had been one of the reasons why he'd decided to join the army. The media and Shinra's own propaganda had endorsed this image so completely, he believed that being a member of this very elite order was synonymous with fearlessness. And he was heartily tired of being afraid.

He'd seen several demonstrations of SOLDIER eliteness in his early recruit days, before he'd come to know Zack, and had been surprised to see the dark-haired youth who'd given him some kind words in a random hallway after failing his exam among the participants. He'd been too naive and anxious at the time to realize what the bars of rank on his dress uniform had meant, and he couldn't recall them later to look it up. He really hadn't expected to meet him again, and to see him performing among the peers of his class - _First Class! _- had been like a bucket of ice-water dumped over his head. The other boy wasn't all that much older than him, he guessed, and First Class? It had hardened his resolve to continue on and make it into SOLDIER.

They'd been assigned to the same mission a couple months later, and Cloud had been secretly pleased that Zack had recognized him and seemed to make a special effort to see him out to talk to him. The older boy had an infectious nature about him; he was friendly and approachable, and Cloud soon found himself opening up to him, despite his intentions to keep personal details to himself.

A few more joint missions followed, including one where they'd found themselves pitched against an unexpected and unusually difficult monster. Zack, the senior member leading the team and the only SOLDIER present, had ordered everyone safely back and dealt with it on his own. He had been fearless, and had down-played the effort when the rest of the squad had come forth with praise. That sealed his fate as the ideal SOLDIER in Cloud's eyes, even over that of the great General Sephiroth, whom he'd only seen twice at a distance.

Zack had been placed on a mental pedastal, and everything he was so effortless that nothing shook that vision of him in Cloud's mind. He strove to emulate the youth whom he soon considered a friend, though he didn't tell the older boy such for many months, unsure of the reception he might get if he did. When Zack had offered his expertise to Cloud alone to help him further with his training ("And don't tell anyone else," he'd said with a grimace. "I'd get hounded by all sorts of recruits, not to mention my peers and superiors, and then I wouldn't have time to train you at all!" His blue eyes had twinkled as he winked at the shorter boy, seeming to glow in the twilight under the open sky near Junon. One of the happiest days of his life.), the blond had reacted with a surprised, "What? Me? You want to help _me_?" Zack had given him a strange look and replied, "Sure, what are friends for?"

Even when the Nibelheim mission fell apart and Zack had been wounded so gravely that Cloud had taken him to be dead, he never left that important position in Cloud's eyes. He did not blame him for failing to stop Sephiroth, nor was Zack to blame for their capture and use as lab rats in the mansion basement. Zack's unfailing support during their torturous experimentation only cemented his position as the ideal SOLDIER - brave, compassionate, efficient, many other things, and above all else, _fearless_ - in Cloud's mind.

Fearless. The essential component. He wanted to be fearless too. But it was hard, trapped in the basement with no hope of rescure or escape.

The ideal was shaken right to its core sometime in their first year of imprisonment, sitting on opposite sides of metal bars separating them, when Zack covered his eyes with his hands and openly wept, whispering about how scared he was that he had betrayed them both into their captivity through his own recklessness. He had apologized many times over and never asked to be forgiven, but of course, Cloud never blamed him, so there was nothing to be sorry about, or forgiven for.

He had been unable to answer Zack, caught deep in a mind-numbing dose of mako. The confession had been entirely rhetorical, but the words had assured him that _being afraid_ was a very human trait, and above all else, SOLDIERs were human. He would put on a brave face for Zack, to show him that he was also scared, but fearless in the knowledge that somehow, they would survive.


	15. JENOVA

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**15. Jenova**

She was... insidious.

During our imprisonment in Nibelheim, I had been injected with something that wasn't green, and burned the inside of my veins with a fire unlike anything I had ever known. I don't know how long I was sick after that, the days all blurred into each other. That, combined with the green, made me virtually useless when Zack and I made our escape.

Eventually, the feeling wore off. I thought maybe it hadn't worked, whatever it was supposed to do.

How wrong I was.

Ever since seeing her body in the lab at Shinra, I could hear a voice. Just a tiny whisper at first, hardly louder than my own thoughts and barely noticeable. I wouldn't have been able to say what the voice was saying, as the words weren't intelligible.

It was the same voice that Sephiroth later used to get me to do things, such as give him the Black Materia.

I had to gain control over it, after that, so that it couldn't use me again.

I hadn't mastered it, so the only thing I could do was keep myself from killing Aerith with my own hands. _Kill them all!_ the voice screamed triumphantly.

_No._


	16. Run

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**16. Run**

I was only good at running away from myself. I hated to be involved in fights of a personal nature, more so when those fights directly involved me. I hated comitting to things I really didn't want to do (and I meant _really didn't want to do_, like cleaning the toilet. Give me a mountain of dishes and possibly a zolom, any day of the week).

Mostly, I hated feeling helpless. I was helpless as I watched Aerith die, and I was helpless when Zack pushed me violently and told me to run. I could run alright on my feet, except for the times when it really mattered. And then the guilt that followed me everywhere, I could never escape, no matter how far I ran from it.


	17. AVALANCHE

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**17. AVALANCHE**

"Hey, you looking for work?"

I narrowed my eyes a little at the speaker; a slightly chubby man, older and taller than myself. He had a big grease stain on one cheekbone, something I don't think he noticed or cared about.

"You look handy in a fight," his companion observed. "And a uniform like that will get you into trouble around here."

"So?" My hand tightened into a ball.

"So," the first man interjected, shooting his companion a glance, "if you're looking for work, and don't mind a little dirty work, come by the 7th Heaven bar in Sector 7 at 8 PM. Tell 'em Biggs sent you." The two turned and walked away.

I thought about it. I did need the money... Did I mind dirty work? I don't think I did. What did they mean by that, anyway?

Only one way to find out. I set about making sure I knew how to get to this bar. At least if it didn't work out, I could always find something else.


	18. Adult

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**18. Adult**

My mother once told me that adults often have responsibilities that include things that they would rather not do, but they do them anyway. The key, she said, was knowing when it became an issue of "have to", rather than "want to".

There were many times in my life when I thought I had passed that point, but looking back on them now, I know that it hadn't happened at those times. I didn't _have_ to join the army, any more than I _had_ to take action against Shinra. (I did that for the money, anyway. So I liked to keep telling myself.)

Did I _have_ to chase down Sephiroth and make sure he didn't destroy the planet?

No. I did that because I had a score to settle with him. Because if I didn't, no one else would, or could, stop him. I wasn't even sure if I could, but I had to try. I wanted to make him pay for everything he'd done.

Did I even have to try and stop Kadaj and his gang? That's where the line started really blurring. I thought I did; not only had he targeted me personally, but he was going to use children. Children who were, largely, orphaned, but that didn't matter. Who else was going to stand up for them?

Being an adult was hard work, but I didn't wish to return to my childhood.


	19. Meteor

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**19. Meteor**

The night was shaping up to be a perfectly clear evening as the party stopped to set-up camp for the night. Their tents went up in almost no time at all, they all had so much practice at it, while those not involved in set-up went off in search of firewood.

Once the camp had been established and supper was cooking over a little fire at the hands of those better equipped not to burn it, Cloud wandered a little ways away from the rest of the group to lay down upon the grass and collect his thoughts.

The sky was deepening in colour, the clear azure expanse over his head giving way to every shade of blue imaginable until the deepest indigo on the horizon. The brightest stars the heavens had to offer were already showing on that perfect background, twinkling mysteriously.

He frowned slightly as he noticed the red dot burning in amongst the points of white light, an unsightly mar on the otherwise perfect sky. _That must be Meteor_, he thought, closing his eyes briefly against the familiar sense of guilt. He opened them again to focus on it, using it as a medium to center himself and his resolve. It stared back at him, unmoving. Just a little red blip in a deep blue sky that would soon be lost amongst hundreds of other stars whose light would diminish the baleful fury of that one spot in the whole sky.

It was nothing like the meteor showers that rained across the heavens he remembered from his childhood. He wondered how many other people in the world were looking at the red star and wondering what it's appearance meant. Did they realize that it wasn't a star at all? Did they realize it was hurtling towards the planet at a speed that would smash them both apart? Did they realize that stopping it depended entirely on whether or not one failed SOLDIER who didn't even know who he was could get himself together and muster enough courage to face off with and stop someone who'd been the most respected and feared man _in the world_?

Did any of that even make sense?

Would there ever be a time when he could just lay back and look at the stars and enjoy them for what they were?


	20. Bar

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**20. Bar**

I never thought about it much at the time, and truthfully, I hadn't really cared. It was only years later, watching Marlene wipe down the counter in an efficient way that was both reminiscent of Tifa, and yet nothing like her, that it came to me. I frowned, counting the years back, though it was unnecessary. Of everything I had forgotten over the years, my re-introduction to the world at large was not one of them.

"_Our hide-out's down here," Tifa was explaining, stepping away from the bar to join the men standing around an arcade machine with an 'out of order' sign taped to it. I glanced back over my shoulder to see a tiny girl stand on her toes to reach the counter, placing glasses on top of it. _

"_Is it alright to leave her here?" I asked, jerking my head in her direction._

"_Marlene?" Tifa barely spared a glance. "Yeah, she's fine. She likes drying the dishes."_

She was older now, and I knew there weren't as many strict laws in place about the running of an adult drinking establishment in the slums, but it still seemed wrong, then and now, to have left a _four-year-old girl_ in charge of the bar while the group met in the basement. Even if it was closed to the public during the hours they met at.


	21. Reunion

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**21. Reunion**

Waiting for a train, Cloud wasn't entirely sure how the system worked. He knew he had never been to the slums of Midgar during his training, and anywhere he'd needed to go on the top plate, he could either walk to, or the army had provided transportation. He stood before the tattered and graffitied line map displaying the train's route, contemplating his destination and how to get there, unaware of the void of people around him caused by the monstrous sword strapped to his back.

That is, he didn't notice the void until someone stepped into it. The back of his neck tingled and he turned his head slightly, just enough to see a dark-haired girl hesitantly approaching. She cleared her throat delicately and reached out to tap his shoulder. He turned before she could touch him, and he must have been glaring because she withdrew her hand and took a step back. A determined look settled over her face and her hand dropped to her side. There was no mistaking her body-language; despite her casual clothing, everything about her screamed "martial artist".

"Sorry to bother you," she said, calmly, "but would your name happen to be Cloud Strife?"

He felt his eyes narrow, just a bit. "How would you know that?" That _was_ his name, but she wasn't familiar at all.

She blinked a few times, obviously confused. "I'm Tifa -- Tifa Lockheart, from Nibelheim? We grew up together?"

He wracked his brains for a memory, but came up with nothing. A huge blank, like everything else. "Tifa?"

She smiled, perhaps a little nervously. "You don't remember me?"

He shook his head, just once. "No."

"Ah." She took a deep breath and looked away. "Well I thought if you were Cloud, it was nice to have seen a familiar face, especially so far from home. Sorry to have bothered you." She turned and pushed her way back into the crowd of people who no longer seemed intimidated by him and had closed in, disappearing no less than three people back. Another face-less stranger.

He didn't have a chance to say anything when she'd given her farewell, of a memory that wriggled free to remind him of a burning heat so intense it felt like he was choking...


	22. Heaven

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**22. Heaven**

I was floating... that was about all I could say. I didn't feel hot or cold, awake or asleep, anything at all. I just _was_. It was an odd feeling, really. A gentle touch brushed over my forehead, so light that I couldn't be sure it was even there. It reminded me of being at home, as a young boy, sick in bed, and my mother would come into the room and lay her hand there, just so. I could hear voices, a woman with a kind tone, a male that sounded vaguely familiar. I wanted to ask who they were, but I couldn't make my mouth or voice work. It was contenting enough to lie there, floating.

I came back to myself in a hurry, feeling like I had dropped out of the sky. My memory came flooding back -- I had been shot, right through the heart, or so I thought, but my chest felt fine. Was I alive? Was I dead? If so, where was I? I was still floating? It was all very confusing.

There were more hands touching me now, on my shoulders and legs. I opened my eyes, seeing the blue sky through a dark hole. I had no idea where I was. Was this heaven? Did I even believe in heaven? Oh my head. It hurt to think.

Things came into focus. Young children, maybe Denzel's age, standing around me, looking at me expectantly. I realize that I am floating in _water_ and I manage to get myself on my feet without too much trouble. Looking around, I recognize the flowers floating in the water, the windows that somehow managed to stay intact. Aerith's church... How did I get here? Looking down, there is a large pool of water all around me, and I _know_ it wasn't here when I last came through, however many hours it had been since chasing Kadaj through on my bike. Oh my bike... I hope it's safe.

I felt more at peace than I had in a long time. If I believed in heaven, and there was one here on the planet... It would certainly be here.


	23. Wolf

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**23. Wolf**

"_You aren't going to marry her, are you?" The boy's eyes were wide, a horrified look on his face._

"_Hell no!" Zack grinned, threw his head back and laughed. "I'll be a lone wolf 'til the day I die, I'm sure of it!" He winked at the boys around him. "There's too many pretty ladies out there for me to commit to just one of them."_

I'm pretty sure he was just talking big for the benefit of the other boys in the room. Shower rooms had a way of doing that to males.

But still, I thought of him when a jewelry maker peddling his wares in Costa Del Sol, and spotted a wolf's head earring among the other bits of silver. I didn't have a pierced earlobe, but I bought it anyway. I knew more about wolves now than I had at the time, and I didn't think Zack's personality would have suited the image of a _lone_ wolf, but other than that, it was appropiate enough.

I didn't want to forget him, for any reason. He'd given me so much.


	24. War

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**24. War**

The Wutai War ended precisely 4 months after I entered Shinra. Many soldiers returned as heros, my idol among them. I had been disappointed at the time, wishing I'd have had the chance to get out there and prove myself.

Later on, though, after witnessing the aftermath of Zack's nightmares, and then experiencing what could have been termed a war, I never wanted to be in one again. Going to bed every day feeling like my ass had been handed to me, even though I'd won, was not something I enjoyed. How could anyone go to war and do this every day?


	25. Peace

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**25. Peace**

Years of training has me waking up most unceremoniously. One moment I am asleep, and the next, wide awake. There is no transition period where I can lie in bed and collect my thoughts, or try to catch the remaining traces of a fleeting dream.

Today is just another such day, no different from the rest. My eyes open and I look at the ceiling, which is barely visible in the dim light filtering in from the window. I take a deep breath and turn to look at the clock sitting on the small table between our beds; the faintly glowing numbers display an unholy hour of the morning. Tifa shifts slightly but goes on sleeping. I throw back my covers and slip from the room, padding silently down the hall and stairs to the lower level.

I make a little more noise in the kitchen, away from the rest of the sleepers in the house, and smile a little ruefully to the coffee-maker. I try to be considerate of them while they sleep, and at 4:30 AM, I am no happier to be awake than they would be if I were to wake them.

The morning routine is always the same - put on a pot of coffee, putter around the kitchen a little (Tifa likes to leave some dishes soaking overnight; I think she does it just to keep me from showering until a little later, as the pipes are a little clanky first thing in the morning), get the makings of breakfast ready, retrieve the newspaper, and finally sit down with a cup of coffee.

Today is a little different than the rest. As I'm sitting there at the table, the newspaper in front of me and a cup of coffee in one hand, dressed only in my underwear, I suddenly take note of the kids' schoolwork on the table, awaiting two young children to pick it up on their way out the door. Marlene is in our care for Barrett, and I think of Denzel more as the little brother I never had, and I couldn't imagine looking after two otherwise displaced children with anyone except Tifa. She has stuck by me and put up with more of my moodiness and solitary nature and habits than anyone else I can think of. I owe her a lot.

I turn my gaze down at the cup of coffee in my hand, and realize that I still hate the taste of it. I'm the only one who drinks it, and now I don't know why. Probably because Zack loved it, and there were many mornings I spent with him where he simply could not function until he'd had a cup of coffee, and of course I had to drink some too or else it was a waste of perfectly good coffee _and_ company, he used to say.

_I hope you're at peace now, Zack,_ I think to myself, as I do pretty much every day. I like to think that I have found peace as well.

And if peace can be measured in coffee, I have enough to last me a lifetime.


	26. Flower

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**26. Flower**

I come into the street in time to see a young woman brushing at her dress determinedly, a basket of flowers spilt at her feet. Barrett's apparent determination to make our professional relationship last as long as possible has irritated me, and for a moment I consider just passing her by and go on my way. But something inside prompts me to stop and for one, brief moment, I simply stare down at the littered blossoms in the dirty street.

For all that the top plate is supposed to be the nicer half of the city, it is remarkably grungy-looking. The street has who-knows-how-many-years of dirt crammed into every nook and crack until it looks like it has always been there. Perhaps it is just the lighting that makes it seem so un-urban.

But that same lighting catches in a tiny puddle of water that is partially obscured beneath a pristine lily, its pale white petals showing only three drops of dirty street-water, and for one, fleeting moment, I am transported back to the foothills of Nibelheim, and plucking the summer flowers from the ground to bring them home to my mother. The girl has scooped the rest of the flowers up, and the lily is snatched away from its resting place, breaking my train of thought.

"Excuse me," the young woman says, her voice sending the memory back to the depths from which it rose. "What happened?"

For one moment, I am confused, and merely stare at her. Her eyes are green, I notice, not unlike the colour of the foothills in the spring. Then I hear sirens in the distance, and I remember the reactor.

"Nothing," I tell her. Maybe I should have said "I don't know_"; nothing_ might be too suspicious. "Hey, listen..." My eyes fall to the lily again, nestled amongst its kin in the basket. "Don't see many flowers around here..."

The girl smiles; I can hear it in her voice. "Do you like them? They're only a gil."

A gil... I need every gil I can get my hands on, but it seems a small price to pay for something that brought my mother such joy. I dig a single coin out of my pocket and hand it to the flower girl. "Oh, thank you!" she says with enthusiastic gratitude, selecting a flower from the basket. Not the one I had my eye on, and for some reason, it doesn't hold the same meaning. "Here you are!" She bows her head in acknowledgement, and turns away to leave me in the street, holding a flower.

I start back on my way to meet with the others, carefully tucking it into my belt. Perhaps I will give it away, but for now, something so delicate should be protected.


	27. Photograph

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**27. Photograph**

Tifa carefully turns the pages of a worn-looking book, a soft smile on her lips as she reads the text written on the faded pages. "I used to think this was all so dull," she says into the silence that sits between us, heavy but not uncomfortable. "Zangan wanted me to read it. 'You must enlighten your mind and spirit before you can enlighten your body', he used to say." She turns a page, revealing a yellowed and burnt photograph. The sound of the silence between us changes suddenly, catching my attention. I turn to look more closely at the picture, and, out of character for me, sit up to snatch it from between the pages to examine it more closely.

Ghosts of the past stared up at me. In the middle, a younger Tifa wore a cowboy hat and leather skirt, a care-free smile on her face, shadowed by the two men on either side of her. On her left, Sephiroth stands with the Masamune held casually in one hand, looking as indifferent as always, and on her right, Zack poses casually with his arms crossed over his chest, a slightly smug smile on his lips.

Tifa looks at me, somewhat anxiously. "I didn't think I still had that," she says. "I thought it was lost in the fire."

The edges of the photograph are burnt, and the corner that contained Zack's feet is completely missing. The surface of the film is curled and bubbled where it is burnt, but that doesn't bother me. My eyes dart from subject to subject, back and forth between the two men who had the most influence on my life.

"May I keep this?" I ask her suddenly, lifting my gaze to meet hers.

She gives a stern look that holds little venom. "Cloud," she starts.

I smile, in what I hope is a reassuring way. "Don't worry," I say, reaching out to poke a finger into her side. "I just don't want to forget where I came from."


	28. Dress

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**28. Dress**

We were invited to a wedding. Barret's, actually, if you can believe it. He met his soon-to-be-wife while working, and that was about all I knew on the subject. I wondered if maybe it was too soon, since they had only met less than a year ago, but the one and only time I mentioned my concern to Tifa, she fixed me with a fierce glare and told me to answer my phone a little more often, and then refused to speak to me for 2 days. I worried a little about how Marlene would take the news, but she seemed happy. She had been invited to be one of the bridesmaids, an honour she told us about nearly every day. In fact, we were out right now, shopping for her dress.

Though, why _I _had to come along, I had no idea. Tifa and Marlene looked at damn near every. Single. Dress. In the shop. I sat in a chair, bored, wanting to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. _Anywhere_ else. The girls would frequently step out of the dressing rooms with a new garment on, and would ask me what I thought. I didn't know enough about dresses - clearly, judging by the amount of eye-rolling that went on after I had replied - and limited my answers to "that's nice", or "I like it". I had learnt early that anything else would earn me more glares and cold shoulders. Except in the cases when something was truly hideous, in which case the aforementioned answers would get the same results.

I would never understand women.


	29. Future

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**29. Future**

The end of a journey... It didn't seem real.

I sat on the hill overlooking the ruins of Midgar, just taking in the destruction. The city was little more than a huge pile of twisted metal, blackened and silent. Meteor had left its mark here, and I had to take comfort in the fact that it was only one city that had been crushed, and not the entire planet. Still, how many people had lost their lives here?

Now that I was done chasing Sephiroth, what would I do? Mostly everyone else had lives to go back to... Except those of us who had been living in Midgar. Should I ask myself instead, what would _we_ do?

The only we could do, I guess. Go forward. Make a new life for ourselves.

The future stretched before us, rife with possibilities.

But first, I think I would like to take a nap.


	30. Turning 30

**DISCLAIMER: Characters/setting/etc not mine liek whoa. Square pwns your souls.**

**30. Turning 30**

Reaching my thirtieth birthday was a milestone I had never really thought about meeting. But now here it was, and I didn't really feel any different than I did on any other day.

But there was still cause to be sad. The kids wanted to have a big party (I didn't, but I was willing to let them to plan it out), but everyone had replied with apologies and saying they couldn't come. It was depressing, especially coming from Yuffie, who'd literally twisted my arm and made me promise to stay in touch more often.

I had deliveries to make, but I had promised to be back for dinner, in which I had been promised an old favourite that I didn't get to eat very often. It was enough, I supposed, to have dinner with the people I was closest to.

The street was quiet as I turned Fenrir onto it, the engine's throaty purr echoing off of the buildings. It was a little odd for the street not to have at least a few people on it, this time of day, but I supposed it was to be expected, being a holiday and all.

I turned down the alley, easing Fenrir up the narrow passageway until it was safely home, and the garage fell silent. I went through the usual motions of closing the garage up (I doubted anyone would want to try to steal Fenrir; not only was it difficult to handle, it was no secret that I had large swords lying around and was very skilled in using them. It didn't really make me feel any better about it.) and entered the bar/delivery service/home through the back door, inexplicably depressed. I didn't even notice that I couldn't smell anything cooking.

"_SURPRISE!"_ Noisemakers went off and I jumped back, so lost in my own thoughts that I instinctively reached for the sword that wasn't hanging on my back. Streamers and confetti showered down over my head, confusing me even further.

"What?" was all I managed to say.

"_HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!" _the collective of people in the kitchen shouted, blowing their noisemakers and laughing.

I looked around wildly -- the room was full of people, full of my friends, people who I'd been told would not be able to make it for any kind of party. A huge banner hung across the ceiling - _Happy 30th Birthday Cloud!_, it read.

Then the congratulations began; the group zeroed in on me and all pressed in together to loudly wish me individual happy birthdays, but they all overlapped, so it was just a big mass of sound rather than anything coherent. I found Marlene fiercely hugging me around the waist, telling me that they'd wanted to plan a _surprise_ party the whole time and keeping the secret for the last month was just torture, while others declared that they wouldn't have missed this "momentous occassion" for the whole world.

It was overwhelming. And I was so grateful for it, I could have cried.


End file.
